Stefano Pilati Ysl Debut

[mdankwah]

JACOBS COMFORTS PILATI

IF Stefano Pilati is feeling a little low after less-than-rave reviews of his first collection for YSL Rive Gauche, he can take comfort in the fact that Marc Jacobs feels empathy with him. "The first collection [for a storied house] doesn't even count," the Louis Vuitton designer told Women's Wear Daily. "The first time, you're just settling in and clearing your thoughts. You really get started with the second collection." In New York to attend the surprise 50th birthday party of his own company's president, Robert Duffy, Jacobs refused to comment on rumours that he has lined up Uma Thurman to be the latest Vuitton leading lady in the spring/summer 2005 ads. Watch this space… (October 19 2004, AM)

I feel for Stefano Pilati

 

[PrinceOfCats]

Apart from his last collection, when TF really did 'buck up' his ideas, Tom Ford's stuff was either badly copied or trash - at least Pilati's collection was well copied. Perhaps the media aren't raving because there palms aren't being tickled with quite so much cash and their trashy mainstream darling just went beyond the point of no coming back.

 

[faust]

To add fuel to the fire here is a blurb from NYTimes:

That Looks Sooo Familiar
By CATHY HORYN

Last week, Women's Wear Daily, reviewing the Yves Saint Laurent collection, said that the designer Stefano Pilati became "woefully lost at a crossroads between the Saint Laurent archive and mid-80's 530 Seventh Avenue." The newspaper was correct about Mr. Pilati's debut show, but a little off with the address. Those ungainly looks surfaced in the late 60's, left, at 550 Seventh Avenue, in the showroom of Norman Norell. Bill Cunningham, the photographer for The New York Times, said he had that déjà vu feeling when he saw Mr. Pilati's awkward proportions. He should know. He photographed them at Norell.

 

[mikeijames]

Originally posted by PrinceOfCats@Oct 19 2004, 07:41 AM
Apart from his last collection, when TF really did 'buck up' his ideas, Tom Ford's stuff was either badly copied or trash - at least Pilati's collection was well copied. Perhaps the media aren't raving because there palms aren't being tickled with quite so much cash and their trashy mainstream darling just went beyond the point of no coming back.

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one thing tom ford understood was making guaranteed hits. the reason the house did not perform as it should have was because tom was busy growing the brand (i mean i shudder to think how expensive the newest ny ysl store cost)while also turning out hits. the mombasa continues to shine as one of tom ford's successes as do several other of his revived hits (the sexy safari jacket, to name one of many)...i really think that only time will tell with respect to how well pilati's ysl sells.

 

[mikeijames]

(and shouldn't this be in the designers and collections section...i mean it's not exactly gossip?)

 

[mikeijames]

YSL: Remembrance of a Proustian past
Suzy Menkes International Herald Tribune

PARIS It is no secret that the poetic nostalgia of Marcel Proust has suffused the heart and the art of Yves Saint Laurent. And a remembrance of things past, used as an aquatint on a contemporary canvas, should be the artistic mission of any designer taking over a brand with a powerful history and culture.
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So when Stefano Pilati set out to create his debut collection, after working as an assistant to Tom Ford at YSL Rive Gauche, giving a Proustian soul to the summer 2005 collection must have seemed a smart and sensitive concept. But think of the fin de siècle silhouette, meld it with YSL's strict tailoring and romantic fluidity and what do you get? Oh dear! Ruffled bustles.
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They appeared as wayward frills or tight rosettes at the back of skirts, under fitted jackets or more often on their own on gauzy meringues of dresses. Sometimes cute from the front as frothy cocktail dresses, the rear looked like chicks in an Easter parade. Even the polka-dot fabric, with which Pilati opened the show, was turned into a snowstorm of all-over ruffles, although it also came as a chic coat with the wide shiny leather belt that anchored most of the trim day clothes.
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Ford had created a high-gloss polish that captured some of the YSL chic, although he had hardly begun to explore the rich heritage of tailoring. Pilati tried his hand at a cropped pants safari suit and evening dresses with a boiler suit bib at the front. But the show stubbornly refused to take flight, even with all those bouncing ruffles, pom poms on shoes and a juicy color palette that included purple suede and yellow organza. Perhaps he was unwise to tap into the 1980s period when Saint Laurent's inventiveness had been overtaken by technical virtuosity. The master may have been able to play with ruffles swinging high and low from thigh to ankle. Truncated to a tulip shape on dresses, the hemlines looked as unstable as the bustles.
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The entire strategy of trying to find a continuity of creativity for retiring designers is stalling worldwide, with no successor found at Givenchy and muted success at Calvin Klein. Perhaps it is time to call in brand consultants to define the house codes and develop them strategically. Is it so difficult to focus on a YSL blazer, trench, tux, safari jacket and give them a concise, modern cut and fabric, rather than bustling about to invent a new image of "Les Jeunes Filles en Fleurs"?
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Intriguingly, Alber Elbaz, currently at Lanvin, was the designer whom Saint Laurent's partner Pierre Bergé asked to take over the reins at Rive Gauche, where Elbaz started to crack the polished chic and replace the impeccable with the approachable. The consequent unfolding of the Elbaz aesthetic - womanly, graceful and respectful - proves just how smart Bergé was. For the Lanvin collection was one of the best in a powerhouse Paris season.
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seems like ms. menkes was not won over either

 

[kimair]

There's other reviews of the show in the Designers and Collections section under YSL SS05.

 

[faust]

Originally posted by mikeijames@Oct 19 2004, 11:51 AM
seems like ms. menkes was not won over either

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Suzy read Prous? I'm impressed.

 

[mikeijames]

Originally posted by kimair@Oct 19 2004, 12:03 PM
There's other reviews of the show in the Designers and Collections section under YSL SS05.

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there are?

 

[Spike413]

IMO the main problem with Pilati's collection as ooposed to Ford's is that Ford, while using past Saint Laurent themes and inspirations, put his own signature and updated by making them sexy. In a way, Pilati moved the label back instead of forward because he didn't introduce anything new.

That's just my take on why it wouldn't get well recieved.

 

[kimair]

from WWD:

An item in Tuesday’s New York Times suggested that, while correct in spirit, WWD was wrong in fact in reporting that Stefano Pilati’s debut Yves Saint Laurent collection tread a line “between the Saint Laurent archive and mid-80’s 530 Seventh Avenue.” The Times put the address at 550 Seventh Avenue, and ran as evidence a Bill Cunningham photograph of a late-Sixties Norman Norell coat alongside a quite similar Pilati coat. Thanks for the directions, folks, but we meant what we said. 550 Seventh Avenue is the traditional residence of the elite of American design — Oscar de la Renta, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan, among others. On the other hand, Eighties-era 530 was populated by meat-and-potatoes types, many of whom churned out knock-offs of knock-offs of knock-offs.

But enough. We’ve made the point, as has the Times: Stefano’s first collection — not so hot. Which is not unusual under the circumstances. None other than Pilati’s predecessor, Tom Ford, called his own maiden Saint Laurent outing a mere palate-cleanser. And in Monday’s WWD, Marc Jacobs made a similar point about such first-collection futility. “You’re just settling in and clearing your thoughts,” he said. “You really get started with the second collection.” So enough with reviewing the reviews. Here’s to fall ’05 chez Saint Laurent.

 

[saturnine]

The first collection doesn't count, eh?